Maverick Trading Review: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Maverick Trading Review

Maverick Trading is both a stock-options trading educational company and a ‘prop trading opportunity’.

TradingSchools.Org found the educational experience to be of high quality and very useful. But very expensive at $6k upfront and $199 per month, in perpetuity.

The ‘prop trading opportunity’ is very much not a ‘prop trading opportunity’ It is quite simply, a marketing gimmick, and a ridiculously bad deal for participants.

Thanks for reading today’s review of Maverick Trading

What is Maverick Trading? The company is a trading educational company with a component that they describe as a “proprietary trading opportunity.” So essentially, there are two aspects of the Maverick Trading business model that this review are going to focus on: the proprietary trading component, and the quality of the education component.

The name of the company is Maverick Trading, and so with this Western theme in mind, I decided to guide the review using analogies from the Clint Eastwood classic movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. For all you youngsters and millennials out there, if have not seen this movie…you are missing out on a timeless classic. A tale about the duality of mankind, the things we do to each other in the pursuit of money, and how any person can easily interchange a role from villain to hero. So let’s jump into this…

A review of Archive.org reveals that MaverickTrading.com began offering a trading educational service and prop trading opportunity sometime in 2009.

Now that we know the players involved, let’s first take a look at the Proprietary Trading component.

Maverick Trading: Proprietary Trading Opportunity?

In the past 2 years, TradingSchools.Org has received nearly 50 requests to accurately and efficiently describe exactly what is the proprietary trading opportunity. Truth be told, the website is very opaque in describing exactly what is being offered to the potential, proprietary trading customer. In fact, to gain an accurate description of the proprietary trading opportunity, you must work your way through a sales funnel of recorded videos. The videos are quite long. And the sales video’s purpose is to walk the prospect closer to the core of information that the client is seeking.

In a nutshell, the client simply wishes to know if Maverick Trading is going to give them a fully funded trading account that starts at $25,000 and goes upwards of $800,000+. Maverick Trading leads the client through a primrose path of salesmanship, showmanship, manufactured scarcity, and purported exclusivity. They want you to feel that you are lucky to be watching the presentation video, lucky to be presented with such an amazing opportunity, all the while giving the impression that “not just anyone can be a Maverick Trader.”

The culmination of the sales presentation ends with a ‘qualifying questionnaire’ that Maverick Trading applicants must complete and send to the sales department, which appears to headed by Darren Fischer.

TradingSchools.Org went through the entire sales process. And we asked all of the questions that readers have been peppering us with, over the past two years. First things first, lets take a look at the supposed payouts, if you receive a funded trading account.

Ok, so funded accounts start at $25,000 for an ‘Associate Trader’ with a profit split of 70/30. The company keeps 30% of the profits and the ‘Associate Trader’ keeps 70% of the profits.

If the trader is profitable, then the person can achieve even greater funding capacity and increase upwards to $800,000+ with a reduced profit split of 80/20. Looks great on the surface right? Ok, before you get all crazy and pile into this thing, let’s take a look at the “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Maverick Prop Trading Opportunity

Warren, please help us understand.

First things first. This is not a ‘Prop Trading Opportunity’. Not even close. In fact, this isn’t even a prop trading company. A prop trading company implies that the company is taking a financial risk on its traders. Maverick Trading takes no financial risk of losses with any trader. Ever. What?! But that fancy table say’s that I am getting a starting balance of $25,000 and as I get better at trading, then I get $800,000. Hold on Warren Buffet. Let’s look at the fine print of this ‘prop trading opportunity’.

Each new Maverick Trader must pay an upfront fee of $6,000 for a trading education. The education process typically takes 4 months of watching training videos titled The Markets Masters Trading Course. The new Maverick Trader must also download a free trading simulator by ThinkOrSwim and trade consistently for a period of 2 months or 50 trades. All the while, the person is paying an additional $199 per month in continuing educational costs directly to Maverick Trading.

Now, suppose that after a few months of successful demo trading, you have been granted the coveted title of Associate Trader. And now you are expecting that $25,000 is going to magically appear. You want to start making some money, right? Hold on Warren Buffet. Before you start, you must deposit an additional $5,000 with Maverick Trading. This $5,000 that you provide will be used to open a trading account with Interactive Brokers. Maverick Trading will supplement your $5,000 deposit with an additional $20,000 to provide you with additional leverage.

But here is the ugly part. You are not allowed to lose any of the $20k that Maverick Trading is providing. They are not risking a penny on your trading. They are simply helping you to obtain additional leverage with your $5k deposit. So if you lose any money whatsoever, you are responsible for 100% of the losses. If you lose your $5k, then you are done trading. Have to come up with more money, and quickly because you are paying an additional $199 per month.

So let us recap this ‘opportunity’. The first step is to pay $6,000 upfront for education. You must then proceed through a 4-month educational program, and pay an additional $199 per month to use a free simulator and to continue to interact with the educational materials. If the company deems that your simulated trading is OK, then they will allow you, to give them an additional $5,000 to open a trading account in their name. Any profits that you earn from your own trading account must be split with Maverick Trading 70/40. You are responsible for 100% of any losses.

Can someone please explain to me how this is a ‘Prop Trading Opportunity’? Maverick Trading takes absolutely zero risks on anyone.

Ok, so now that I have bashed the supposed prop trading opportunity, let’s talk about what I found positive with Maverick Trading.

Maverick Trading Review: the educational component

Darren Fischer is a really nice guy. He runs the sales department. We spoke over the telephone and I really peppered him with tough questions. He was more than open and transparent with me. In fact, he gave TradingSchools.Org complete access to all of the educational modules.

Maverick Trading is primarily a stock options educational product. As I mentioned to Darren over the telephone, what I know about stock options can be fit into a thimble, and there would be room for both of us to jump in. After reviewing some of the training materials, I found the training modules to be very good. They have taken a lot of time to slowly walk the newbie from point A to point Z. Everything stair steps upon the previous material. If something is confusing or difficult to understand, Maverick Trading is more than ready and willing to help a person through the learning process.

Maverick Trading also offers a Wednesday midweek recap, and a Sunday meet up. Both the midweek recap and Sunday meet up are excellent. Much time is taken to discuss the weeks events, and how different financial sectors are responding to current world events. Once again, very good and informative information that I certainly enjoyed watching.

My sense is that these guys have absolutely no interest in providing crappy financial commentary and rhetorical clutter. They certainly care about the customer.

Maverick Trading Education Review: the good, the bad, and the ugly

One of the best aspects of the educational program is that Maverick Trading forces each trader to keep a highly detailed trading plan and maintain a strict risk procedure. Since a person is trading with a live trading account, even though its their own money, Maverick Trading keeps a close eye on what the trader is actually doing. They basically act as a risk manager to keep people focused and not blowing up their little trading account. Remember, Maverick Trading isnt actually providing you with a trading account. Instead, they are attempting to help you remain accountable and not blow up your meager $5k.

Another thing that I found highly useful and very valuable is that the guys at Maverick Trading are providing trading signals of their own trades. These trades are transparent and trackable. The following screen shot is a recent tally of trades that someone at Maverick Trading had recently closed. There are over 400 of these closed trades.

This is reassuring because it shows that these guys are actually trading, it is the education in action. In addition to being transparent about closed trades, there is an additional spreadsheet of prior closed trades. Screen shot below…

Once again, this is very reassuring because it shows the education in action. I find this sort of transparency to be very refreshing. Certainly not the norm.

What did I not like about the educational experience? The price is expensive. At a cost of $6,000 and $199 per month, you are looking at over $10,000 per year to essentially watch someone trade. There are plenty of trading educational services that are offering a basic options educational experience at a much lower cost. The course modules are certainly nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking, but a good basic primer on how to trade different options trades.

The real value is the proven options trading signals and the community interaction that many students will find helpful. Another thing I found refreshing is that Maverick Trading avoids day trading altogether. The options signals typically last several weeks. In the past couple of years writing these trading reviews, I generally recommend that newbie traders avoid day trading altogether. It is refreshing the Maverick Trading agrees with this approach.

Wrapping this up

In my opinion, the ‘prop trading opportunity’ is a ridiculous marketing gimmick. The Maverick Trading website marketing implies that every newbie, fresh-faced country bumpkin is going to get $25,000 to $800,000 in ‘free trading money’ is just silly. It’s laughable really. As I sat in my chair drafting this review, I couldn’t help but repeatedly giggle that anyone would actually believe such a ridiculous thing.

But the truth is that these “we will fund your trading account” schemes are now a very common marketing gimmick that more and more trading educators are employing to corral in the naive and desperate, looking for something free. It’s just not true. Nobody on the planet is giving away free money to trade.

On the other hand, I dont want to discount the value of the educational experience at Maverick Trading. I found it quite good. As a stand alone product, I would give it a great review. But the ‘free trading money’ sales pitch greatly cheapens and casts a ‘shady’ shadow on the educational experience.

A few years ago, many of these trading educators could charge $6k upfront and $199 per month for a ‘trading education’. But those days are over. So it appears that Maverick Trading threw in this ridiculous ‘free trading money’ idea to keep the profit margins on the educational product nice and plump.

Thanks for reading. And I really want to know how ‘the crowd’ of TradingSchools.Org readers feels about this latest “we will fund your trading account” trading company. So leave a comment. Let your voice be heard.

Maverick trading is a good company but I have found a better one. That is trader2b.com. If you are lookng for a good-paying one, then u must try it, instead. They have good propositions for new traders. After all, they pay in a bi-weekly basis.

My father and I wrote this book. $9.99 is a lot better than $11,000 plus $199/ month. If you decide the program isn’t for you, it’s only 10$ lol. You trade with your own money and account and you don’t pay a percentage of your profits. Your profits are exactly that… YOUR PROFITS! Why give someone 20%-30% for doing absolutely nothing?

For shits and grins I took a look. Not a single review and ranked : 3,136,642 in Kindle Stores. Well at least you admit to being a vendor. But have you learned nothing from these con artist that sell trading information, maybe you are an honest one. I don’t know. But if not, I will help you out. Spend your days making up alias and posting amazing reviews of your book. Say stuff like how you were homeless and then someone told you about this book and it changed your wife. Just go to the Day TR con artist sites… Read more »

If you are dead set on trading, then my advice is don’t day trade – Period. If you think you are going to make money taking 20 trades in 6E everytime you see a hidden divergence in the Stochastic (thanks Bottom Dog Barry) you have a better chance of making money in Vegas; and if you learn to count cards a lot better. You know when people made money in day trading? During the NASDAQ bubble days. They bought Breakouts and guess what; everyday stocks broke out and just kept going up up up. An idiot could make money in… Read more »

I’d suggest you find a good sim account broker and platform. If you are going to try forex and trade the smallest denominations do it with a reputable broker such as IB and never the forex bucketshop brokers. Stay clear of MT4/5. Thinkorswim has a decent sim platform but their live account fees are among the worst. You could start out with a few hundred dollar accounts and trade dimes like the small change slots as everyone loses their first trading account, so best to minimalize the first busted account. No one who actually trades for a living would ever… Read more »

If you are considering trading forex have a look at babypips dot com’s education and their free strategies as well as forexfactory or forexpeace army; the sonic R system and Kingfisher Renko Trading system are two that spring to mind as, as good a way as any to try day trading and blowing up an account or two. Another free site swing-trading-strategies dot com has strategies as does forextradingstrategies4u dot com dtchurn has given you good advice. Read, learn and try out your own strategies. Go sim for awhile then open an account and trade micro lots so that you… Read more »

Most people when they say trading at this site, they mean day trading. And usually that means expecting to get unrealistic ROI with no risk.

My advice is invest in something you know. Whatever it is. If you love art and know what is good and bad, then buy art. You will do better IMHO investing in something you know then trying to invest in something you have no idea about.

I joined the firms fx division maverickfx. I really question whether these guys trade for real or make their money solely on the joining fee and the monthly subscription. Their education appears sound and informative. They do have some tools that seem useful. In the end though seems that their firm at best sits around break even with the trade alerts. They do have a trade log that shows their trades wins and losses with monthly pip counts so it all looks very real. But they conveniently forget to log some of their losing trades pretty much wiping out the… Read more »

“But they conveniently forget to log some of their losing trades …” Most of these day trading rooms teach you nothing but how to trade white noise. That is why even trading sim with a lenient Sim generator and not including commissions, these con artist can not trade profitable and why they must forget a losing trade here and there or change a losing trade into a winner. It does not take a lot of manipulation to make a losing trader look like a winner. Its all part of the illusion. That is why only brokerage statement showing live trading… Read more »

For sure, mortage fraud Bob Amico tried to bull the shamsters’ standard all over the original GTR commentary. He got caught and had to do a sewer pipeline basement video before being fired by Simonsez because he made it worse for the churn business. Amico’s and Sandy’s new site should be reviewed as they are doing the same thing churning dupes again. Exactly, if they , and every other retail trading shamshow out ther could actually trade for a living they sure wouldn’t need to “sell” dreams and shamshitshows of sim trading and various fraudulent tricks to churn out newbs… Read more »

“…. where the host acting as members chewed me out when I questioned and pointed out their spreadsheets were all sim and fake.” Man, that bring back memories. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was piping mad. One instance was so funny I still remember it vividly and have wrote about it in the past. This TR operator calls out a trade and loses money and then gets on the mic and talks about how it was a winner. I only had a little chat box, while they have the mic as their bully pulpit.… Read more »

I hear you RobB. Good idea about Emmett writing a book someday. I bet he would have a lot material, anecdotes and even legal documented research to make a substantial work and I bet the book would be a bestseller and even be another decent income stream for him, far better than those $7-10 ebooks by those new self-proclaimed “former hedge fund managers” who sell their kindle ebook at the same time promoting their site or stocktwits page. I hear you too about the member actors who are often the host themselves or shill friends or family members. They often… Read more »

I am soooo glad you made this review. I have been researching Maverick for some time and I just couldn’t find good criticism of the company. This review was incredibly refreshing and helped me with my decision.

Glad you saw this review in time too Kelly. Also be aware Maverick has put their scammy faux “trading job” ads all over the U.S. craigslist boards and omitted informing Emmett about that sleazy fact in his research discussions with them.

I doubt those options signals are live trading, probably sim. No one can make a living or even a regular profit on option spreads. Just check out the debacle story of “Karen the supertrader” on elite. Even Snotoff’s tastytrade segment for his daughter failed when she lost her whole account. It’s even harder than day trading. The option pits at the cboe retained some of their marketmaking edge but eventually it got taken over by the computers too. I followed a few of these former pit players turned educational gurus’ ideas and calls on the free section of cboe.com. They… Read more »

“Even Snotoff’s tastytrade segment for his daughter failed when she lost her whole account.” I thought that that account blew up because she followed her father into some shorts on futures, and refused to liquidate (per her father’s advice), staying short until the market rip tore the account to shreds. I seem to remember that the options part was going OK. Then again, I could be wrong. I did stop following after a while, because the persistent short bias no matter what, seemed rather silly. Good enough for a millionaire trading small positions, which necessarily implies that he can take… Read more »

You probably know more about the details of the blowup than I do Cyn. I only watched the segment like twice during the beginning then later heard about the end from elite, not to mention all the bad trading of Snotoff over the years. I’ve long ditched watching tastytrade. I don’t believe now any of them could trade for a living. I think they get paid for their shows and shilling thinkorswim and tda which has some of the worst commission rates for the retailer.

Exactly, she and her team got caught up into fraudulent activity. I remember Snot-off featuring her on his show a few times where her story was how idiot investors gave her 50 million then 100 million after she gained 50% on a 100k account for one year all by supposedly using two legged strangles on indexes such as SPY and RUT. Which is possible to do in a steady market for months but akin to picking up nickels around a roaming bulldozer before inevitably getting creamed. Instead of coming clean and closing up the failed fund when the inevitable big… Read more »

dtchurnNO, The Self-Proclaimed Post Relevancy Grader. I think my post are giving you a purposed in life, so you should thank me and send me one of those free T-Shirts. In the mean time I will continue to post when I see a reason to do such. BTW you can skip those post if you like. I really will not mind. Now if you have some type of intelligent argument against something I say in my post, What am I saying; of course you do not. You are clearly delusional or associated with a vendor who is scamming people. I… Read more »

Hey!

tradingfratboy and his shills are spooked you or an informant is getting close to spotting the license plate of the rented lamborghinis. In the tradingfraternity yt videos since the review, he has mostly driven his dad’s toyota and cadillacs in the dark and also pretending to be a real estate guru, lol.